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"You're Only as Good as Your Last Picture": Myrna Loy on Working in Hollywood
From: Columbia University
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EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION |
The actress Myrna Loy (1905-93) started out as a dancer, but her striking looks quickly caught the attention of Hollywood talent scouts. After a decade of playing the stock character of the "exotic vamp," Loy had a breakthrough, starring as Nora in the 1934 hit The Thin Man. In a 1959 interview conducted by Columbia University's Oral History Research Office, Myrna Loy talks about The Thin Man and her experiences working inside the Hollywood dream factory. |
Myrna Loy: I think, of course, the big break was The Thin Man, when [W.S.] Van Dyke put Bill [Powell] and me in that. Yes, Van Dyke discovered the property of The Thin Man--of course, it was a book by Dashiell Hammett, a very good mystery, but he saw the possibilities in the characters. It was a very small-budget picture, for that time, and what they called a "sleeper." When he suggested doing it, he said he wanted to use Bill Powell and me in it. They said, "You're out of your mind." |
He said, "Oh, no. I know these people. I know them well, and I'd like to have them play the parts." So we did. That was what happened. |
He took about 18 days to make it. It was a very fast picture for that time, very fast. |
Question: Did you have the feeling that you were doing something different and wonderful? |
Loy: Yes. Yes, we did. It was great fun, and it just seemed to work, you know. I had worked with Bill before--in Manhattan Melodrama, the picture with Clark [Gable] and Bill. That was a gangster story, the story of Blackie and his friend. But of course, The Thin Man--one of the reasons for its enormous success was the fact that there was this wonderful relationship between these two people; they had this great tolerance for each other's idiosyncrasies, and this nice camaraderie, and also, it was the first time that married people had been pictured. |
Usually they got married and lived happily ever after, but you never saw them married, except perhaps in one of those comedies of Lubitsch's that was full of intrigue and the rest. But this was something that so many people could identify themselves with--and they did, too. They really did. |
Q: I have an idea that sex was handled in a new way, too. |
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| Myrna Loy talks about The Thin Man. | |
Loy: Yes. Yes, I think it was. There was more humor in it, probably. Mr. Thurber, I think, said the other day, on that Small World program, that there must be some humor in sex. I think there was, in that. Very nice. A nice, gay quality. |
Director Woody Van Dyke
Q: We think of Woody Van Dyke as being the most efficient of all the directors. |
Loy: Yes. He prided himself on that. He was a very talented man. I don't know whether you ever saw the serious pictures he made, like Eskimo, which was a marvelous picture. Then he did another one, something about the South Seas, which was a beautiful picture. It wasn't the one with Novarro, but another one. |
He had great talent. He was a marvelous director. But he also was very fast. He believed in spontaneity, and he was able to get it out of people, too. He wouldn't let you rehearse too much. He always had this kind of electrifying personality--you felt sort of good about things most of the time. Somehow, he managed to do this. |
He was fast, but he didn't do a shoddy job, as some fast people do. He was a cutter, too--a great cutter and editor. He was able to cut his picture as he went along. There was very little wasted film; he always knew his shots, he knew pretty much what he was going to finally wind up with, instead of shooting a great deal of stuff and then going in and picking it out and cutting it afterwards. He would cut it on the way. So I think that was one reason why he could work faster. Sweet man. A terrific personality. He was probably a very sad man, really, but you never saw him in the doldrums. Never. I never did, and I knew him very well. |
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| Myrna Loy reminisces about director Woody Van Dyke. | |
But I never saw him down. He probably would have been better off if he had allowed himself to be down--maybe. Maybe if he had indulged his humors more. But he never did. He was a fighting Marine, loved the Marines. He's been dead quite a long time. |
The studio system
Q: We've been told that MGM was an actors' and producers' studio, that they ruled. What was your relation with the studio? |
Loy: Well now, I don't know. I've never thought of it that way before. Of course, I was there for so long. I worked at Metro for--it must have been 10 years, although I have worked in a great many of the other studios. |
Q: Did Metro loan you out? |
Loy: Yes. And then I had worked in the other studios before that--Paramount, 20th Century. Then they used to loan me to 20th quite a lot. I used to work over there a great deal. |
I suppose perhaps some of the stars were powerful at Metro. They were also powerful at other studios. Writers never had any power. Not enough, until now. Unfortunately, because you know they were really bypassed. Fortunately, now you have your combinations of writer-producers, or writer-directors. But this was always one of the sad things, to me, that writers were never given the proper amount of respect, in my book--anywhere. Respect, I'm sure, but not recognition--that's a better way to put it. |
Q: Did you have choice, with your pictures? |
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| Myrna Loy talks about the studio system. | |
Loy: Oh, no. I was suspended from Metro. You knew that, didn't you? Well, of course, that sounds dreadful--but it's part of your contract, if you don't want to play a part, they can suspend your salary until such time as someone else has played it and finished the role. Sometimes this can get rather uncomfortable on both sides, but sometimes you have to do it. I did it in one case because I was overworked. I thought I had done too much in one year, and I was very, very tired and wanted to get away and rest. In another case, I thought I was very wrong for the part--and I was--and I just said no. But this happens to a lot of people, if they have any independence of spirit. Actually, they do pretty well by their people, but then again some producer will come along and want somebody for something, and it may not be right, and for one reason or another they let him have his way, so that person is asked to play it. That did happen to me several times, yes. |
Q: Those must be high-level policy discussions, with envoys going back and forth. |
Loy: Yes--and your envoy is your agent--and if you happen to have a good tough one, it's all right. |
Q: Were you in much contact with Louis B. Mayer? |
Loy: Oh, yes, indeed I was. He was volatile, a very interesting man, really--amazing man. Some people thought he was a bit of a tyrant, which he could be at times if he wanted to be. On the other hand, you don't build an empire like that, you don't build that particular type of thing, unless you know what you're doing. He had a great way of knowing what was right for his people to do. With me, he used to say, "I'll never let you scrub the floor." That was his way of putting it--he had this thing about me that I must always play ladies, no matter what. So, although you never were really conscious of it, he still guided things, to a great extent. He made many decisions, behind the scenes. |
Q: I would think he must have had a great story sense, too. |
Loy: He had a great sense of drama, of the dramatic. Yes, he had a sense of these things--which I'm quite sure he was never articulate about, you know, but he had it, without being able to analyze what he had or put it into words, really. That was something you felt about him. He certainly knew, when he saw a personality--he knew. He never missed on those. Then he would go all the way to build that personality. Although Thalberg brought me to MGM. I didn't know that until much later: that he had seen me and brought me there. |
Being in the public eye
Q: How did Metro handle your publicity--the apparent way of life, being one of their biggest and brightest stars, this glare of publicity? |
Loy: It's quite a thing to live with, too. How did they achieve this? Well, by constant feeding of photographs and stories, and of course, wherever they're needed and wanted, they are there. They never built any legends around me, though, fortunately. I was always pretty stubborn about that. I never could understand why anyone was interested in what I ate for breakfast, any of this. I was never very cooperative on that point. |
There have been legends built about many people. Some of that is wished for, on the part of some of them. With others, however, it is not wished for. It's very difficult. Terribly difficult. It becomes a trap, in a way, you know. I'm freer of it now than I used to be, and I used to run away from it, as a matter of fact. I had some sort of healthy thing in me that just catapulted me out of there. I used to come to New York--I lived in New York a lot of my life--I used to come here, I'd go to Europe, or go into the country, just to get away from it. |
I remember, during the war, I came here, and I got a job with the Red Cross, doing a morale program for them. At that time I realized, to my horror, how intimidated I had become about the outside world--because I had had this group of people around me constantly, to protect me. I had been insulated. Of course, you have to have this. Whenever I'd gotten off the train in New York, there had been five or six people from the office to meet me, take me in a car, get me into the hotel and so forth, and my life after that was geared pretty much according to what had to be done. Then at the theater I was protected. I was protected all the time. |
I'll never forget how astonished I was one day when I got away from all this and I was walking along Park Avenue, which was less busy than Madison or Fifth would be, and I was afraid to look either to the right or the left, for fear I'd be mobbed. Because I had been mobbed, from time to time. I thought, "Isn't this terrible, isn't this awful, to have this feeling of not being able to look your fellow man in the eye without something happening?" Then I realized it was because I'd been overprotected, to a certain extent. |
Then, when I got this job with the Red Cross, I found myself with Red Cross workers. I had a couple of people who traveled with me. But some of the time I was alone. I'll never forget the first time I came back home alone from Baltimore, on the train, at night. It was just an incredible experience for me, because I hadn't been alone. For years, I hadn't been alone on any public conveyance of any kind. When I had to go into the dining car and eat, I sat there with my head bowed, you know. |
Then I began to enjoy it. I began to have the time of my life. It was just wonderful. |
This happens. It's really terrible; it's very sad. But there's nothing you can do about it. That's why I always laugh when they talk about movie stars wearing dark glasses. Well, they have to, you know. They have to do something. They don't do it because they want to, believe me. Sometimes they get torn to pieces if they don't. |
You can do it in New York. It's easier now. But certain people can't. A girl like Marilyn Monroe can't. I went to a preview with her the other night, and it was a terrifying experience. It was awful--this mob that converged on her after the theater, before she got out of the theater. They had cops all over the place, and things were roped off, but it still didn't do any good. |
Q: It could be dangerous, psychologically--if you read enough that's written about you, you believe it. |
Loy: Well yes, I think that can happen. Although I must say I think it's surprising that it doesn't happen in more cases, actually, because it really doesn't. I think perhaps one of the reasons for that is--I don't know, so many of these people--well, as I was saying before, I think you'll find that the majority of actors, actresses and writers, if they have any sensitivity at all, are rather shy people and rather humble people. The better they are, the more humility they have. I think they feel they're never good enough for anything, really. This, of course, is not generally understood, but I think it's very true. |
Q: "You're only as good as your last picture"? |
Loy: Yes--and even that isn't good enough, really, you know. |
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| Myrna Loy discusses being in the public eye. | |
Of course, there are examples, I'm sure, of people who let things go to their heads. But among all the serious workers I've worked with, I haven't found very much of that, really. You have to build them up, most of the time. Now you can go to psychoanalysts and get built up, if you get too unsure of yourself. |
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